


Around the Edges

by lovetincture



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Coronavirus, Domestic, M/M, Post-Fall (Hannibal), food insecurity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:48:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23127298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovetincture/pseuds/lovetincture
Summary: Empty grocery store shelves are a chilling sight for those that have known hunger. Disaster strikes, and life goes on unimpeded. We live around the edges.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 11
Kudos: 157
Collections: Fic Journal of the Plague Year





	Around the Edges

**Author's Note:**

> It's not that I have nothing to say about this fic so much as I think I've talked myself right out over the last several days. These are dark days, but we do what we know how to do. I know how to write.

The shelves are all conspicuously bare. Hannibal’s lip curls.

For a moment he feels the bitter rushing wind of Lithuanian woods in the winter, in the distance the baying of hounds. For a moment, it doesn’t matter that they have plenty of food in their cupboards at home, homemade stocks, preserved vegetables, and enough meat frozen to last them months.

For a moment, he’s not quite himself.

The moment passes as Will touches him on the arm. “Hey. Are you okay?”

Harried mothers push grocery carts down aisles stuffed with more people than goods. The air is permeated with the overwhelming scent of bleach.

“I’m fine.”

Will doesn’t look convinced, but then, Hannibal doesn’t feel particularly convincing.

They finish their grocery shopping as quickly as possible. Sometimes Hannibal enjoys taking his time, lingering over a stand of fragrant plums or carefully inspecting the marbling on a cut of meat while he deliberates on dinner. Today is not one of those days. He feels the beginnings of a headache, an unfortunate pulsing behind his eyes that seems somehow connected to an aching gnaw in his gut.

He insists they stop for lunch, never mind the kale and arugula that won’t appreciate being left in the car.

Will keeps looking at him, sidelong glances that somehow feel _itchy,_ but whatever is on Will’s mind, he keeps it to himself. He orders soup and a sandwich in the cafe they stop in and doesn’t mind when Hannibal gets lost in his mind.

They’re quiet on the drive home.

A gaggle of dogs meet them at the front door, too well-mannered to jump up and tear at the wool of Hannibal’s pants but just daring enough to crowd underfoot. Will makes a sharp noise at them, and they scatter, minding their manners better than most of the people Hannibal has seen today.

They set down the grocery bags and wash their hands, then begin the task of setting the kitchen to rights. They move around each other with the grace of long practice, silent bodies orbiting the same center as grocery bags are emptied. His chest brushes against Will’s back when he leans around him to put cans of tomatoes away. Will leans back, leans into him, and if that doesn’t feel like a sacrament then surely nothing in this life will.

He expects Will to press him. Now that they’re home, back on neutral ground where they’re not fugitives but lovers, he expects Will to push his advantage. He doesn’t.

He plucks the last bunch of radishes from Hannibal’s hand and puts them in the vegetable crisper before turning back to him.

Hannibal has never gotten over the look in Will’s eyes, the intensity contained within when he has committed himself wholeheartedly to a goal (or to Hannibal). It sparks a madness in him, a howling rage that he could never capture such a thing, not on paper or in song. The hounds bay in the distant forest in his mind, and Will drags his hands firmly down Hannibal’s chest.

“Go sit down,” Will says, soft and low in his ear.

And oh, he _wants_ something. Hannibal has never been able to figure out if Will is unaware of how transparent his machinations are, or if he simply doesn’t care—it’s possible that he doesn’t. There’s really no reason to, not when they both know Hannibal is powerless to say no either way.

He thinks of saying no, just to prove that he can.

“Will you join me?” he asks instead.

“In a minute.” Will kisses him lightly on the lips, then pushes him in the direction of the door. “Go.”

He goes.

He goes to the living room, alone, the dogs seemingly finding their master better company. He can’t say he blames them.

Animals have never been overly fond of him, even the dogs his family had kept when he was a boy. They tolerated him, as he tolerated them. He had ever truly understood the compulsion to love such creatures—a perplexity that Mischa did not share. Mischa who he had adored, who had been adored in turn. By everyone, and him among them. The dogs loved her. Even the rangy barnyard cat that was more mange than fur had loved her. She was easy to love.

He tracks his way back through dark roads in his memory palace, dim paths half-remembered that skirt gaping maws where the floor has rotted away. It’s an effort to come back. He reaches up to loosen his tie, slipping the first few buttons of his shirt free. He leans his head back against the couch and stares at the ceiling where immaculate moulding awaits him at perfect right angles.

They haven’t lived here long enough for cobwebs to accumulate—when they do, he’ll call someone and have it taken care of, of course, but for a moment he mourns the lack of a shared history. His family’s ancestral home is filled with nothing but history, mouldering centuries’ worth. He hasn’t seen it in years and if all goes according to plan, he hopes to never see it again, but he imagines the way it must crumble. He remembers Chiyoh’s face, the evidence of her years spent as his jailer for the sake of her righteousness.

He thinks of Will and wonders at the symmetry. It’s pleasing, in its way.

There are darker roads to discover, more of them to follow. He feels like indulging himself tonight, which is to say he feels like torturing himself.

Will has a sixth sense for such things, it would seem, because he chooses that moment to make his reappearance. He never tires of denying Hannibal little things—it pleases Will to torment him, and Hannibal delights in pleasing Will in the ways allowed to him. They make do with what they have.

Hannibal closes his eyes. If Will wants his attention, he can make efforts to secure it. He’s in the mood to wallow in the intolerability of human frailty, but he’s willing to be surprised.

He smells Will’s efforts before he sees it, before the smooth stem of a wine glass is pressed into his hand, cool and fragile. He thinks how easy it would be to dash it against the side of the coffee table and press it into the soft skin of Will’s throat—habits of a lifetime die hard. There’s the sharp burst of fruit, acidity rising on the air along with the pungent scent of good cheese—a little too cold for optimal flavor, but fragrant nevertheless.

Hannibal opens his eyes when he feels a solid weight sink into the cushion beside him.

There is wine in his hand, a platter of cheese, bread, and fruit laid out before him. Cuts of salumi stud the plate, all the more precious for being made of their own two hands, evidence of their work in the world.

“We’ve just eaten,” Hannibal says. It isn’t _thank you_ and it isn’t _why._

Will smiles and pushes the glass of wine toward Hannibal’s face, waiting to be sure he drinks before taking a sip from a cup of his own.

Hannibal looks at the food laid out before him.

“You’re hungry,” Will says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

He isn’t. The meal at the cafe had been perfectly adequate, just slightly over-seasoned but passable and filling.

He is, because somewhere in the night animals howl and sheets of hail tear at a young boy’s skin. The pain of frostbite cramps fingers and toes that turn a color that frightens him, and there’s a gaping emptiness in the pit of his stomach that claws its way always towards his heart.

Hannibal takes another sip of his wine. He spreads soft cheese on a slice of bread, closes his eyes, and eats.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/lovetincture).
> 
> _This story is part of the Fic Journal of the Plague Year project, a collection of stories written during the coronavirus pandemic that include an end note contextualizing the story in the author's experience of the pandemic._
> 
> I seem to be trying to write about the coronavirus without writing about it. Like the title of this fic, I can only approach it from the edges. I can’t read the news. I can’t think too hard about what’s going on in the world or I’ll sink, but I can take little bites of the aftermath. I’m interested in exploring the ways we deal with a global pandemic, what old traumas are unearthed, what new trauma we’ll all sustain.
> 
> This fic is an exploration of Hannibal’s trauma, the holes in the floorboard of his mind that bare grocery store shelves open up. Global pain has a way of highlighting our own personal pain, at times.
> 
> I’m frightened by the lack of normalcy I see in the world whenever I leave my house, and Hannibal is a safe vehicle to explore those feelings. I can give them to him and watch as the kindness of a partner brings him back to life, the same way it does for me. We are often saved by the people around us.
> 
> I wrote this fic in a strange, charmed space with [Tei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tei) one night, tossing snippets and ideas back and forth in a small, private chat room while we pulled these heavy fics into being. It reminded me of old times where we did the same under better circumstances; it felt like vital work, if I can say that without it carrying the whiff of self-importance.
> 
> At the time, I wasn’t totally happy with the outcome of this fic. I gave up when it felt too heavy. I stopped because I needed to be done. Rereading it for the sake of adding this end note, I can see beauty in it. I think it is complete, and it’s exactly what it needs to be.


End file.
